


self-sacrifices in the dark

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: The World Is Not Enough - Garbage (Music Video)
Genre: All Sorts Of Death Is Mentioned, Artificial Intelligence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Kissing, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, Pre-Canon, Robot/Human Relationships, Self-cest, present character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 23:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19486144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: You protect these people from yourself. They don’t deserve it, of course, but you’ve earned their adulation and you will take your fill of it.





	self-sacrifices in the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weakinteraction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/gifts).



She is not a surprise to you, this woman. Her hair is red, like yours, and her eyes gleam in exactly the same way you’ve seen in the mirror. Her skin, unlike yours, is blemish free without the help of cleansers and creams and make-up, but nobody would notice the difference unless they looked at you side by side, really inspected the pair of you. Perhaps it’s just your ego talking, but you think her beautiful.

“They’ve sent so many of you,” you say, getting to your feet. You dress in a navy so dark that it’s almost black, the silken fabric clinging to your hips. She wears the same gown and she wears it better than you do. You shouldn’t take pride in this—it’s not your achievement—but you do anyway. She is you in all the ways that matter. “You’re perfect.”

This latest is the best of the lot, the closest to the truth. They capture that sliver of vulnerability that exists in the back of your head that only shows as a glint in your eye when you’re close to finally giving in and letting them have what they want. It wouldn’t be so hard to give up the spotlight, the adulation. You sing for these people you despise, jeweled, rich idiots who care nothing for you beyond the noises you’ve trained your vocal chords to produce. You could be one of these automatons that keep getting sent after you and they wouldn’t care. Hell, so long as you sing, they wouldn’t even notice. There’s possibility in that, and pain. All this work, hours heaped upon hours as you trained and struggled and fought your way to relevancy, it means nothing.

You protect these people from yourself. They don’t deserve it, of course, but you’ve earned their adulation and you will take your fill of it.

She doesn’t speak to you. They never do, though you’re uncertain whether that’s because they can’t or won’t or have been ordered not to. Their motivation is obscure to you, opaque. They are a secret that you keep from yourself. Maybe you could find out their cause and purpose, but part of you doesn’t want to know. To know would make these encounters into something profane and unremarkable.

You hope it hurts their creators when you kill them to save yourself from certain doom. They deserve that much respect. You, their killer, can’t be the only one who mourns them. Each and every one of them. Goldenrod, the first. Silverstar, the most recent until tonight. These are names you gave them yourself, whimsical little things to keep them straight in your mind. You’re afraid you’ll run out of names before you run out of victims.

They will send another. Maybe next time, you’ll choose not to be ready for her. Maybe you will give her the gift that each of them have sought from you.

There is a knife in Nightshade’s hand. It glints in the light from your dressing table. She carried a garrote before. Pinky, that one was, your favorite so far, a little more spunk in her than the rest—the result of a programming error, you think. A gun once, though that was very loud and difficult to cover up. She was your least favorite and a pain in the ass.

It’s easy enough to disarm her, though you wish she was more capable, stronger. It might be nice if one of them took the choice away from you. You always hate this part.

“I would love you if I could,” you say. Her lips are sweeter than the others, softer, warmer. She responds as though she does love you, clutching at your shoulders to pull you closer. They’re getting good at this, too. That realization sits heavy in your heart. You can’t wait for the day she succeeds.

_Please succeed._

She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that you’ve turned the knife on her, pressed it against her stomach where all her most dangerous electronics live. Well, _live_ might be the wrong word for it. Those deadly wires, the vast stretches of metal, they aren’t alive. It’s not blood that will spill from her chest cavity when you plunge the blade into her and pull up.

“I wish we had more time,” you whisper against her mouth. She doesn’t argue or fuss. She goes down easy, easier than Silverstar, much harder than Goldenrod. You wish it were not so. You wish you couldn’t anticipate the shower of sparks that singe and smoke from within her torso. You wish you couldn’t see the bomb, tied to her life, die as she powers down, too.

You step over her body, crouch down to brush your fingers over her open eyes. You apologize to her for your weaknesses, your fears. She had every right to live, too. It’s not her fault that she was built to grisly, unfathomable purpose.

You make a promise to her. It’s all you can do.

For now, you can sing.


End file.
